+ wife? Not permitted into the room as she drew her last breaths, eyes swollen shut, face nearly recognizable, body all bruised and +

+ broken, stitched up from surgery that had lasted all night, violated because we were •taught• to seek peace and she was better than +

+ that, a victim of #Mufasa’s preaching of pacifism. I had to stand in the doorway outside, only getting a glimpse of her as she coded, +

+ while her family stood all around, paying their last respects, showing their love. I couldn’t hold her hand or brush her hair back from +

+ her face or kiss her lips one last time. And •years• of animosity, resentment, jealousy, forced inaction, hardened into •rage•, hatred. +

+ I must have looked all the more menace then. But before the end of that night, it wasn’t just #Sarabi’s blood on my hands, my clothes, +

+ and that fire in my eyes wouldn’t be going out until I met the same fate for myself. Now, I tasted vengeance in every breath. Every +

+ time I smelled a human. And #Mufasa, well, he’d be better not crossing my path… My eyes trained on a man up ahead whose eyes shifted +

+ nervously around, expecting someone to come up behind him, with the self-conscious hunch of an untrained criminal always looking over +

+ his shoulder. Still hadn’t learned to anticipate the moves of his enemies. His brow was damp with sweat that gleamed in the rare +

+ streetlight and rose above the other smells in the muggy air. He sensed me coming, but like most people, he didn’t want to offend me or +

+ risk his own ego by showing that he was scared, though his heartbeat crept faster and faster with each quickening step. He couldn’t +

+ predict how quickly I would be on him though. One second, several feet behind; the next, close enough to breathe down the back of his +

+ neck and raise the fine hairs along his skin in terror, the heat of my body close enough to be felt through the thin material of his +

+ shirt, my enormous presence looming monstrously behind him. My voice passed my lips in a menacing growl, barely above a whisper, masked +

+ by all others nearby by the sounds of traffic, trucks backing up to make late night deliveries, voices and TVs and music still playing +

+ in every direction, so low it could have been uttered only in his own mind. ≡ •RUN•. ≡ And the beast came out before he’d made it ten +

+ feet, in fast pursuit to herd him to the nearest city landmark, so that his body would be left, a gory testament to the violence that +

+ would come, for the morning rush of pedestrians to find. A warning, that now the monsters would rise. ≡

[1] #TheMonstersWillRise ••••• #TheLionKing ► #Disney Read: tl.gd/n_1sq1su3